Before I jump into the meat and potatoes of this column, the time is upon us: register NOW for Catholics at the Capitol, our annual legislative advocacy day at the Nebraska Legislature. It’s on Wednesday, April 9. We’ve got a lot in store. You’ll hear from elected officials and NCC staff about key pro-life, school choice, human sexuality, immigration, anti-poverty, and social media regulation bills. You’ll then take that knowledge and advocate with your State Senator, and get a chance to watch the Nebraska Legislature at work. To top it off, you’ll be joined by 250 of your closest Catholic advocacy friends from across the state. It’ll be great. Register at www.NEcatholic.org – and act now while seats are still available.
Now, back to our regularly programmed schedule!
Every legislative bill that is introduced into the Nebraska Legislature receives a public hearing in one of its fourteen standing committees. In many other states, bills are introduced into the legislative process and that’s the end of their lifespan. But not so here. The lifespan of a bill extends, at the least, to a public hearing where a bill gets its time to shine.
Our one-house (unicameral) system provides the “Second House” (the people of Nebraska) a robust opportunity to intimately participate in the lawmaking process through committee hearings.
As hearings can sometimes go until midnight, this can make for long days for Senators, lobbyists, and other advocates. But regardless of the length of a hearing, it is amazing to see Nebraskans from all corners of the state, of every political stripe, and with little to no knowledge or an expert in the field (or something in between) sit in front of a panel of State Senators and communicate why this or that bill is a good or bad idea. And, for those who cannot attend the hearing, the Nebraska Legislature makes it simple to submit comments through the Unicameral’s website.
This year, the legislative hearing process is around a two month long process, over a matter of roughly 40 legislative days. The Nebraska Catholic Conference is taking positions of support or opposition on about 50 legislative bills this session. When you do the math, we have at least one bill up each day of hearings.
But the math doesn’t always work out so neatly in real life. In other words, when it rains, it pours.
A couple weeks ago, we had a record-setting (we’ll call it an unofficial one, since I’ve never actually kept track) eleven bills in one week with committee hearings. We supported bills on food assistance, protecting the reality of sex as male or female, promoting safe and healthy social media practices for kids, advancing school choice, supporting adoptive parents, and combatting pornography. We opposed bills that would undermine parental rights and weaken laws governing child abuse and neglect.
Other weeks aren’t quite as crazy.
For example, last week we had bill hearings on four bills. We testified in support of two bills helping our immigrant population and one bill supporting foster care kids with school choice. We also had a top tier bill in committee hearing, LB512 which would provide important health and safety protections for women against a profiteering abortion industry.
This week is a mild week, as we are only testifying on a couple bills, one to help the poor with earned income tax credits and another to protect medical conscience rights for health care professionals.
But when we aren’t publicly testifying on bills, we are monitoring other bills as they work their way through the legislative process or we are preparing for upcoming hearings, especially on our major legislative priorities like the four school choice bill hearings we’ll have next week.
As we participate in these bill hearings, we invite you to do the same. And, the good thing is, we make it easy for you when you join our Catholic Advocacy Network of Nebraska, which you can do at www.NEcatholic.org.
Remember, your voice matters and State Senators are influenced by Catholics when they speak up. God bless your efforts bearing the light of Christ in the public square!
